Playthings Of Fate
by Mav1
Summary: Continues the ending of the manga. Chiaki finds herself utterly alone in a city of corpses. Everyone wants her to take the role of Savior, but she refuses without her familyand so begins the search for the demons and angels of her past.Rating may change l
1. Chapter 1

A/N- tell me what you think ok? It's just a beginning with the usual background info and everything. After this chapter the story will progress a little slowly, but it's only because time in Chiaki's world is pretty much frozen. Now, as the manga only had four volumes I'm going to assume that short of making the characters happy-go-lucky cheerleaders everything about their personalities is pretty much open to artistic liscence. Rest assured, they won't stray very far from their obvious depressive tendencies, but at times I'm sure Chiaki might come across as OOC with her language and actions. Just remember- she's just lost everyone she loves and who loved her. Anywho- R&R please.---

_Where does a demon go when it dies? Where does the King of Hell go when he can no longer breathe and the sound of his heartbeat becomes a faint, distant memory?_ I could only kneel there, knees coated with the sticky warmth of my own blood that now formed a small puddle underneath me, staring blankly at his beautiful pale face; his dead face. My hand seemed to take on a life of its own and reached for his blood-stained flesh before I halted its hesitant progress and curled the fingers back till nail met palm. My head flinched automatically toward the sudden sound of movement behind me. The nameless faces that Othello had brought with him from Hell were collecting the lifeless, broken bodies of Shiro and their other various fallen comrades. Miss Lucy took Kuro, that poor lost little soul, by the hand and tried to lead him off but found that he wouldn't budge. The poor kid seemed to be in shock still; he stared with empty eyes at the ground before turning to look at me with tears in his eyes. His mouth formed the syllables that made my name as she lifted him up to carry him away, but no sound escaped his open lips besides that helpless mewling that abandoned kittens fancy so very much. I looked away when he reached out his hand towards me. I felt more than saw Othello approaching and crouching to gather up the empty shell that used to be his brother.

"No," I growled, "leave him."

"But…"

"Just…just give me a minute. Please?"

"One minute."

I turned back to my first, my only, love. The resounding clap that echoed through the rubble-filled lot jerked me out of my reverie in time to see Ororon's head flop once on the fragmented concrete and my, now strangely stinging, palm come to rest on the sodden skirt covering my thigh. I looked up to Othello, questioning. The shocked look on his face answered me well enough for a thousand of his worthless words. I couldn't help the single tear that slid down my cheek as I leaned over to kiss the Demon King's bloody porcelain lips. _No, not the Demon King anymore, is he now Chiaki? _

"You said you would stay with me forever," I whispered, "you promised." I moved my lips to hover over his ear. "I'll find you Ororon. Wherever you go, I'll find you…and I _keep _my promises." I kissed him once more on the cheek. " I love you. You hear me Ororon? I love you."

Then Othello was hoisting him onto his shoulder and sauntering off, slowly disappearing as he went.

"Othello!"

I could barely see the remnants of his half erased mischievous grin as he turned his head back over his unburdened shoulder, towards me.

"Where does the King of Hell go when he dies huh!"

His grin got even bigger and I could hear his quiet little chuckle even from here.

"Damn you," I breathed as he disappeared completely. "DAMN YOU!"

Without warning, a hysterical laugh had bubbled its way up inside me and what little tears there were left came pouring out beneath the frighteningly loud echoes of my broken laughter. _Nice one, Chiaki _I though to myself _Damn the new King of Hell. Nice. _I had no doubt that Othello would take up the reigns in Ororon's stead; just as I had no doubt that he had also gotten a laugh out of the irony of my previous statement. For a while after the last vestiges of echoed laughter had faded away I just sat there, quiet. After the laughter and cacaphony of racing thoughts had disippated, I realized that there was no noise anymore; no movement. The sun was dying: bleeding crimson into the smoke-filled, but otherwise clear blue sky. A sense of foreboding filled me at the sight of that rust-covered horizon. _Where is Lika? Where is Lika, Chiaki! _I was at her side before I even thought to move. At the sight of her ashen face and lifeless, staring eyes, something strange happened. I could feel something starting as a fluttering pain in my gut moving slowly up my spine till it burst somewhere behind my eyes and I realized- I was broken. I was broken now. Something in me had snapped and now all that was left was a gaping hole where my heart should have been. I stared down at my dead best friend with a detachment that would have scared the old Chiaki; the Chiaki who still had emotion, who still had a heart that could bleed. I didn't close her eyes like you see people do in the movies: I didn't want to touch this…this husk, this shell of what this girl had once been. I would not use her name again. Nor would I think of her as my friend. This corpse would be the one memory of her I would try to erase, but I wouldn't let myself remember the feelings behind all of the other memories where her eyes shone bright with life.

Somehow I knew that no one would come, that there was no one left to watch out for one lost and broken half-breed angel-girl. I retreated to somewhere far away inside myself where I could still feel my parents' arms around my fragile little form and remember Ororon's eyes in mine. My body went on without me and dug up a shovel somewhere. At some point I vaguely realized what I was doing and came back enough to pick a good spot near the girl's body before returning to my small, dark spot inside. Sometime later, I woke up to myself patting the dirt flat over the shallow, unmarked grave.

"Sorry," I whispered before stumbling off.

I woke up slowly to the sound and scent of cool rain on hot asphalt. I was spread-eagle on the floor of some empty building, my face turned towards the hole in the front wall facing the street. The hole was just big enough for me to get in and out through without having to bend or twist anything. The rain blurred my view of the obliterated city and its corpse-riddled streets. I turned my face towards the other wall , the other hand. The translucent green glass of the liquer bottle felt cool against my palm. How long had it been now? A week? Two weeks, a month, a year? I sat up, pulled my bony knees to my equally bony chest, and took another slow swig of the warm, burning liquid. The first night I had gotten drunk, I didn't know when to stop or even if I wanted to. I drank until I passed out. The resulting hang over the next day was enough to squeeze little droplets of salty moisture from my eyes. I had slowly and painfully learned how to drink just enough to knock me out and make me forget without making me want to kill myself from the pain. I took another swig and slowly, carefully stretched my legs out in front of myself. I ran my free hand over my ribs, counting the jutting bones as my fingers passed over them. I had taken to wearing a black sports bra (more training than anything, but my size didn't really make much of a difference anymore now did it?) , a pair of underwear, and a pair of black cotton boxers. I left my feet bare in the apparently futile hopes of catching some fatal disease. As a result, my feet now sported several scars and large callouses that now pretty much destroyed any hope of diseases getting in through wounds or weak spots. My hair had grown out in patches that stuck out in every direction and fell in dirty tendrils at my feet from the filth that ate at my scalp. As my hand skimmed over the last bone and hit the hollow beneath, I realized that I had lost count.

The gentle rhythm of the rain beckoned me utnil I was soaked and shivering in the middle of an empty street in the middle of an empty city. Othello was there before I even had the opportunity to envision his face in my mind.

"You called?" That annoying little smirk of his. "You look….well," he said with laughter in his voice before lighting a cigarette in the deluge.

I just stood there, shivering and quiet, and stared at him.

"You know you can make this stop, right?" he asked with a shrug and slight upwards nod of his head.

"Why am I alone? Why is everyone dead? Why has no one come to check this place out? Why does the water still run and the light still turn on when I can't leave this place and no one's alive to run things? Why…?"

"Chiaki," he replied firmly; taking a step closer, "Chiaki." He looked into me for what seemed like forever before grinning again. "I think you already know the answers to your questions." Another step. "I also think maybe it's time to exit the denial stage," he said while giving the almost empty bottle in my hand a pointed look.

I glared at him. Suddenly, I found that I was holding back tears and the resulting shame made my glare all the more fierce. His grin faded.

"I know that something's not right. I know that I haven't been attacked or contacted since you left." I paused, sighed, and relented. "I also know that something in me senses what's happened, but my brain just hasn't caught up yet." I closed my eyes in frustration. "There.Ya happy?" Silence. "Whatever." I turned and started to walk off before his long, frigid hand suddenly came to rest firmly on my shoulder, halting my progress.---

A/N- I left it on a mini-cliffy in the hopes that the people who enjoyed it might review for more. I do want you to tell me what I'm doing right so that I may keep on doing it, but I desperately want you to criticize me. I want to know what I can do better and how. Thanks much- CGUll (aka Wizzy)


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- The memory scene is done without reference, so it's going to be from Chiaki's point of view. Dialogue will be made up, but it will follow the basic gist of the real moment they had in volume 4. Oh, and- I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS OR SETTINGS FROM THE DEMON ORORON!!!!! **

"_I know that something's not right. I know that I haven't been attacked or contacted since you left." I paused, sighed, and relented. "I also know that something in me senses what's happened, but my brain just hasn't caught up yet." I closed my eyes in frustration. "There.Ya happy?" Silence. "Whatever." I turned and started to walk off before his long, frigid hand suddenly came to rest firmly on my shoulder, halting my progress.---_

He chuckled briefly and responded, "Always."

"Do you like the rain Othello?"

"What?" he sounded a little caught off guard, but still amused.

"Do…you…like…the…rain…_Othello_?"

"Why?"

"Because I don't." And the skies were overcast, but the rain had stopped.

For once, there wasn't so much as a chuckle from Othello. The sudden tremor of rage that raced up my spine stole my breath as the bottle flew from my hand. The sound of the shattering glass calmed me slightly, enough to turn back to Othello.

"Never mind, I don't want to know. I don't want to know anything. I won't like the answers anyways."

"Chiaki…"

"Just…just go. Go away, Othello, just go away."

"Fine, but just so we're clear, Ororon resisted you and his feelings for you for this very reason. You think you're only punishing yourself. You're not, Chiaki. Your pain is the world's pain, whether you like it or not."

Shocking, isn't it, to hear him be serious? I concentrated on the sudden absence of presence behind me that marked Othello's departure. I brought back the rain, I searched out another bottle; anything to keep that memory from coming back. _Damn you, Othello._ The pain wrenched through me and filled the whole inside my chest with a burning that brought me to my knees.

"UUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHH," my keening wail filled the air for a brief second before the memory came crashing over me.

_++No, no no no. No Ororon! Please. I can't even say "stay with me Ororon," I can't even say "I love you, Ororon." I'm an idiot. He tells me how he's always making me cry, how he's always hurting me. No, you're different Ororon! It's not your fault! But he's dieing…he's dieing right in front of me. He tried to stay away, he tried to push me away because he made me cry?! No, no. It's my fault because I'm weak. Ororon, you're not weak, YOU'RE NOT WEAK ORORON! So why are you dieing?++_

It was a long night. A painful night surrounded by a blizzard I didn't even know I had it in me to create.

At some point during that particularly long night, God came to me…again. I had lied to Othello. I had one visitor, one contact, one hunter- God. If I hadn't already been driven to insanity by the death of…by the death of _him_, God surely would have shredded what little sanity I had left by his constant appearances and badgering. He was always hiding in the shadows, whispering in my ear, screaming, singing, screeching, humming. It was nerve-wracking, to say the least. It was hard enough trying to ignore the words that I couldn't even guard against the emotions behind his voice.

I was back in the house with the hole in the wall, lying on the floor again, when he appeared. He floated over me, his depthless eyes staring into mine calmly. I grimaced in disgust and turned over. I knew I didn't have the strength to block his words tonight.

"Chiaki," he started. I wanted to gag. I suddenly hated the sound of my name, because of the way it came from his lips.

"Don't call me that."

"Chiaki, stop being obstinate and just…"

"Just what? Just save the world? Yeah," I scoffed, "_riiiiight._ Okay, let me just run and get my cape and we'll be ready to go."

"It's not funny, _you're _not funny Chiaki."

"Oh, really? I happen to think I'm _very _funny."

"You think that just because you lost the one you loved, tha…"

"IT WAS MORE THAN ONE DAMNIT!" I screamed as I flew to my feet in an overwhelming flurry of rage and grief. "I LOST _EVERYONE! _It was bad enough the way my parents were _lost,_" I sneered, "but no, that wasn't enough was it?! WAS IT?! You took away my only friends! Even the ones who didn't die, you sent them back didn't you?!

"I di…"

"And then you took _him_," I gasped at the memory of his face lying on the crushed pavement, covered in blood. I fell to the ground again as the sobs began to rack my body. "You took the only one I ever loved. You took him awaaaaay," I moaned. I sounded like a baby, like a toddler who's lost its mother. I couldn't do it though; I just couldn't summon the strength to hold it all back.

"Chiaki, I didn't _take_ anyone. None of this was by my choice."

"But you chose not to stop it," I whispered, "You chose to sit there and watch as what little I had was completely destroyed. _And you claim that you care about me_."

I could feel his shock and I smirked. "Didn't think I heard that, did you?"

"I…"

"I'm going back to sleep. Go pester someone else, someone who actually cares maybe?"

For once, he did what I asked. And I was alone. Maybe if God had been silent, it would have been nice to have him around; he kept the place warm.

7+7+

I woke up the next morning to the inexplicable urge to run. So I ran. I ran all the way to the city limits and collapsed gasping, on the warm asphalt of the road. Moving my head and eyes slowly, I found a small convenience store off to my right. Somehow, I dragged myself over there and found a bottle of water in the refrigerated section that still worked despite having no one to operate it. The frigid water traced an icy line down my throat and the sudden cold caused my chest to constrict. It was like déjà vu. This was something from life before. This was something normal, something okay.

After the shivers had passed, I wandered aimlessly through the maze of corporate buildings, restaurants, and small stores that made up this particular end of town. The only reason I found the door was because I wasn't looking. It was a black door in a black wall in a black alley. I shouldn't have been able to find it at all. I guess being the Savior changes a person's perceptions of the world around them. All three blacks were different and, even if they weren't, I could _feel _the door. It reached out, grabbed at the hem of my boxers, and tugged. Even after I swatted the sensation away and continued on, it pulled at every fiber of my being. I felt like a child caught in a rip tide. _Well, can't really swim against it, can you Chiaki?_ So I gave up and ambled my way back to the inconspicuous door that behaved like a attention-seeking toddler. Warily, I reached out my fingertips to brush against the blackest black I had ever seen before. At the first, tentative brush of the pads of my fingertips, the door slid smoothly open.

I hadn't known what to expect, but if I had made a guess to what was behind that door, I would have been dead wrong. _Why? Why would this be here?_

**A/N- I know, I know. It's too short, it's been too long since the first chapter, blah blah blah. I really am sorry about my update-phobia, and I will try harder in the future to update what I can as often as I can. Also, I would to address imafrog19's comment briefly. **

**Dear imafrog19,**

**I am sorry if the drinking or wardrobe disappointed or just didn't sit well with you. The reason she drinks, as mentioned in the story, is to keep the memories and the pain away. It's pretty much that or suicide. Also, you will be happy to know that the drinking has officially ceased. Yay Chiaki! (And she never attended one AA meeting. We're all so proud.) As far as the wardrobe is concerned, she would feel uncomfortable wandering around naked, but doesn't feel like making the effort to actually "dress." Again, make with the gladness because the half-nakedness is also soon to cease! And for the whole "typo" thing, shakes head and hangs it in shame jeez I hate that. I hate typos with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. So, naturally, I was mortified when I read back over that first chapter again. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. (Btw- I say I hate typos, but I loved the typo joke in your comment). **

**Smooches dear,**

**Wizzy**

**And a big thank-you to everyone else who reviewed, faved, or alert listed:**

**Chikazuni- I know!! People totally need to write more Ororon fanfics! Thanx luv.**

**Sakurachild- Lol, I hope I continue it too! Thank ya, thank ya very much.**

**Cloudlvr23- You'd rock even more if you'd drop a review winkwink! Lol, j/k. **

**No, really though. Love ya anyways! FAV ROCKS!**

**Secret13- See above.:) Thanks for the alert and fav. **

**WARM FUZZIES ABOUND!!! --;**


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